The Saving Graces Read Online Free PDF Page B

my breast, and I hear myself uttering the very same sentiment that used to make me grind my teeth: "Not that I'd wish it on anyone, but it was good that this happened to me. It's turned my life around." Well, it needed turning around. It had taken a little detour, my life, occasioned by, among other things, the discovery of my husband's chronic unfaithfulness. I don't know why, but I've been thinking about Gary quite a lot these days. I've been wondering if I was right to turn his last act of betrayal into the catalyst for our breakup. If we were still married and it happened today, would I forgive him? I believe I would. I hope so. Because I'm not the same person; I don't have that anger inside me anymore. Thank Cod. Oh, but what would Lee say if I told her this? Or Emma, or Rudy? It doesn't bear thinking about! The only bright spot in the long horror of my divorce was their friendship, the way they rallied around, united in loathing Gary. In the space of one women's group meeting, they went from being rather fond of him to wishing him dead, and at the time I found that enormously comforting.
To this day, I haven't told the Graces the whole story of his infidelities. Too embarrassed, I guess; it's shameful, Gary's behavior, and some of the shame has stuck to me, as if part of the blame were mine. Perhaps it is-I'm sure it is. But I'll never forget and I'll always be grateful for their savage, righteous fury when I told them how I discovered his first peccadillo. It happened on the night of our nineteenth wedding anniversary-which, in retrospect, seems fitting; as long as I've known Gary, he's always had terrible timing.
He took me to a new Turkish restaurant in Bethesda-a little gift of nostalgia for the good old days, when we were first married and lived in Ankara. I was surprised and touched. We drank raki and ate skewered lamb with eggplant, and went home and made love on the couch. Most unlike us, but Terry was in Richmond on a glee club overnight, and for once the house was ours. I fell asleep afterward, and woke up in the dark. Carrying my clothes, I wandered upstairs, feeling cozy and smug because' my marriage was nineteen years old and I still had sex on the sofa. Gary's voice, low and confidential, came to me from the half-closed bedroom door, and I paused on the landing, nothing but curious.
Who could he be talking to on the telephone at midnight? In that voice?
Betty Cunnilefski -a name that didn't amuse me in the slightest until much, much later. She worked as an administrative assistant in his office. I'd met her once, recalled her vaguely: small, wispy, beige, the sort of woman you see dining alone in restaurants, who's careful to keep the cover of the book she's reading facedown on the table.
Gary confessed everything that night in a rush. He wouldn't see her again, he swore, and he'd have her transferred to another office. Even in the midst of my hurt and anger, I felt a small pang for Betty-who, true to his word, Gary moved to a different department within the week. And presumably never saw again. I believed him at the time, he wept so convincingly, begged my forgiveness so sincerely. He seemed almost as shocked as I was, and unable to explain why he'd done it. Which was just as well, because if he'd claimed he was lonely, misunderstood, sexually deprived, drunk, seduced, in midlife crisis-any excuse would have ignited the silent, seething volcano of anger in me. I was barely aware of it, frankly thought myself incapable of it. And Gary would have been flabbergasted if he'd guessed at a fraction of it.
It took three years for the volcano to erupt. Betty may or may not have been his first mistress, but she wasn't his last. How did he get these women? That's all I want to know, now that the fury has burned itself out. Gary is short, jowly, on the stocky side; he has a full beard, and still plenty of salt-and-pepper hair. He's bullchested, thick-necked, and short-legged. In bed he's ramlike, a barterer. Fine if